I was reading Tim Harford's Logic of Life. It's a great book from a smart economist and has a few very interesting revelations about daily life. I was particularly impressed by one visualization it had in its closing chapter, 'a million years of logic', and I thought I'd share.
It is really hard for us to see how fast things are developing lately. Let's do this together; assume all of last million years has happened in one year. Using that scale, we learnt how to control fire sometime in spring and Homo Sapiens appeared in mid-November.
Circa 19 December was when we have seen cave paintings. Egyptian Paraohs' time was around 30 December. 31st December have witnessed the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.
Columbus discovered Americas roughly at 7:30 PM. First world war began 11:10 PM. We invented the internet at 11:50 PM. Google at 11:55, Facebook around 11:58 and iPhone around 11:59. Quite amazing eh?
We always say things are developing very fast lately and we know they'll only get faster. I found this as a smart way of putting things into perspective and show 'how fast'.
Now stop and think for a second about this pace. Then move on with your fast life :)
